Thursday, October 23, 2014

Maryland

So I'm going up to Madison this weekend. I'll probably end up at Camp Randall for the game, and I'm sure I'll drink a million beers regardless of where I go. But on an email chain planning out the weekend, one of the guys tossed out going to L'Etoile Friday night for dinner. Couple problems with this in my mind:

I've literally NEVER been to a restaurant with a name I can't pronounce and enjoyed myself.

When I think of all the beautiful booze I could buy with that money, I start to tear up.

I know for a fact that I would be SIGNIFICANTLY happier eating at Rocky's than I would eating at Frenchy McFrencherville's.

I'm aware that I'm in the minority for that. Everything dictates that because this is a really nice, fancy place with a chef that people have probably heard of, the experience would be OUT OF BOUNDS. But I don't dig on that. I'm also a firm believer that when you have a group of 8 bros, you don't need to spend every waking second of a weekend trip together. I have zero intention of preventing the group from feeding each other pan-seared scallops with asparagus puree and a sprinkling of deconstructed zucchini pasta HAND-CRAFTED by Chef Moinsoreé. If you get down on that, power to you.But I'll be much happier with a fine Sausage pizza thrown in the oven by Chet, the sophomore from Janesville working the Friday night shift at the Rocky's on Regent. You can get fancy Maine lobster with buttercup squash beurre blanc ANYWHERE. Rocky's sausage is UNIQUE and not available in Chicago and therefore I WANT.PS - It used to be 'How do you know you don't like it? You've never tried it!' Yeah well I've started trying all this fancy shit and I just don't like it. #TeamRockys4LifePPS - Pretty sure for $20 you could eat like a king at Rocky's and drink like 5 beers. I don't know how anything could make more sense.3xPS - If I make it through this entire weekend without getting Rocky's, I will be MOSTdisappointed.CHICAGO BADGERS: I think the LOFOMO (Law of FOMO) should make me want everyone to stay home and be boners since I'll be gone. But that's crazy. Go get your Wills on.WHO/WHERE/WHEN

TV: BTN
WEATHER: 66, SUNNY, LATE OCTOBER SUNBURN HERE WE COME

THE BEST WISCONSIN ALUMNI 7) Butch Vig

Butch Vig, so cool. Look how fucking cool he is. But WHO IS Butch Vig? Only one of the single greatest producers in rock HISTORY. In his career, he's worked with Nirvana, The Smashing Pumpkins, Green Day, Foo Fighters, Sonic Youth, Muse, Goo Goo Dolls, AFI, and Jimmy Eat World. That's a fucking all-star cast right there. The man produced Nevermind for crying out loud. He's had an influential hand in some of the absolute best music written in the last 20+ years. And he did most of it out of his studio in Madison. The pride of Viroqua, Wisconsin.PS - Viroqua, such a Sconnie name for a town. Maybe I only recognize this because I grew up in Wisconsin, but I feel like Wisco has a really high percentage of cities that all sound EXACTLY the same. Minocqua/Vinoqua. Milwaukee/Pewaukee. Waukesha/Waupaca. Delavan/Delafield.PPS - Oh yeah, forgot to mention that he founded and played drums in Garbage, which is a band totally popular enough that I've heard of them. They had a song in Rock Band! In between producing albums for the greatest rock bands of the last two decades, he founded a band that has sold over 17 million albums. Think about that, look up at that picture, and try to come up with a better adjective for Butch Vig than 'cool'.PPPS - He named his daughter 'Bo' after UW hoops coach Bo Ryan. Cool factor times a million.4xPS - Okay I made up the Bo Ryan part.Previously:8) Anders Holm9) William S. Harley10) J.J. WattHonorable Mention: The Daddy-O of SpaghettiOs

Seriously, watch that GIF. It was way too big for me to embed here, but definitely worth your time.

2) Ohio State, 5-1 (2-0). Count me as unsurprised that OSU's backup 8 star quarterback is lighting up the scoreboard. Really didn't see that coming!3) Nebraska, 6-1 (2-1). Demolished the nerds, making me not all that thrilled about playing them. But I'm not all that thrilled about playing anyone right now, so who knows.4) Minnesota, 6-1 (3-0). I have ALWAYS wanted to do something like this:

That's perfect. A+ execution. Is this an example of being passive aggressive? I consider myself of above average intelligence, but I still fail to understand the concept of passive aggressiveness. Just got no feel for it. Like you know how sometimes you look at a word too many times and it starts to lose all meaning (Milwaukee is a good example - look at that word like 50 times and tell me it makes ANY sense)? That's how I am with passive aggressiveness. I've looked it up on google so many times that I'm just completely lost.

5) Maryland, 5-2 (2-1). Please don't ruin our Homecoming. I don't even care about Homecoming, but a lot of people do. So don't ruin it. That would be such a dick way to enter the B1G.6) Indiana, 3-4 (0-3). What happens when you rub a stuffed animal on a puppy's mom and then give it to the puppy?

GAH that's too much.

7) Iowa, 5-2 (2-1). I really couldn't name one player on this Iowa team. Kirk Ferentz Jr.? If Kirk Ferentz has a kid who plays football and is named after his dad, I bet he's on this Iowa team. I'm a damn EXPERT.8) Penn State, 4-2 (1-2). Losing to Michigan, making people hate Penn State all over again. Way to go.9) Michigan, 3-4 (1-2). Being a college student is the BEST:

Except I have absolutely no idea why she's stealing gross white milk when delicious chocolate milk is but a spout away. Bonus points for the loose waves, though. Looking good.10) Rutgers, 5-2 (1-2). Out of all the teams we might lose to this year, I think Rutgers would offend me the most. Yeah, the Northwestern game sucked. Sure, losing to Minnesota will anger me. But losing to Rutgers would simply offend me. Right down to the core.11) Northwestern, 3-4 (2-2). I love whenever they show commercials of a bunch of bros watching football, one of them is ALWAYS holding a football:

Can't watch football without holding a football! No human in bro history has ever just sat there holding a football with his fellow bros while broing out for a football game. That's such silly TV trope. These guys hold swords when they watch Game of Thrones as well? Actually that doesn't sound half bad.

12) Purdue, 3-5 (1-3). I saw some tweets from people who follow college football for a living saying that Purdue was looking good. I don't believe that. I refuse to believe that. Purdue will be terrible from now until forever and you can't possibly convince me of anything else.13) Illinois, 3-4 (0-3). Every week I come to the same conclusion: there are too many damn teams in this conference. We need to annex Illinois and Purdue and Rutgers and Northwestern right NOW. Is annexing when you force people to leave? Or is that something else? We need to EMIGRATE these boner schools is what I'm trying to say.14) Wisconsin, 4-2 (1-1). Every Thursday for the last few months I've taken a lunchtime stroll through the Daley Plaza with one purpose: CHEESE. Some dudes are always selling this dank fucking cheese that they cut into little bite-size pieces and melt on a hot plate. People come up and snag a few samples and RARELY buy any cheese. Every week I think 'I'd love to eat this at home sometime' and then I grab another sample and book it to Chipotle. BUT THE TIDES HAVE TURNED:

CHEEEESEEEEE. I'm so excited. I got this cheese and it's ALL MINE. Can't wait to heat it up and chew it down.PS - Notice that it says it works great as a stuffing. I don't want cheese curds made with this, I NEED cheese curds made with this dairy gold.PPS - My coworker suggested just making the world's most ridiculous grilled cheese sandwich by throwing this brick between a couple slices of bread and I almost died just thinking about it.PPPS -

RANDOM MUSIC WE'RE DIGGING HARD THIS WEEK

In honor of Meek Mill's release from prison, figured I'd share one of the many bangers he's put out the past few years.(@DannyGoldin)

Everyone knows Basement Jaxx, its just been a while. Next time you're at the club (often right?) pray they play this song and pray that the women around you are twerking per this video. Then take a handful and look up to the gods in approval. (JQW)

What's a musical anachronism? Is that when a song is written in the 2000s but sounds like it was from the soundtrack of Jackie Brown? Because that's how I feel. I recently discovered this song and was positively BEFUDDLED that it was written in 2010. Makes no sense. I'm okay with it, because it's an awesome song... but it makes you raise an eyebrow. SNEAKYMATCHUP TO WATCHI Hate Andy Ludwig

Ever since Bielema left and Andersen was named the head coach, I've been supportive. GA was inheriting a program that had been consistently winning for over a decade. The cupboard was not empty. And if he could win at Utah State, he could definitely win at Wisconsin. I'm still on board with GA - recruiting has been solid since he's arrived, and I expect it to only get better.But offensive coordinator Andy Ludwig is a different story. All I heard from the second he was hired was that Wisconsin fans would grow tired of him very, VERY quickly. This was all coming from fans of teams that he had coached before - people who had to watch him run their offense. Halfway through the second year of the Andy Ludwig era, I can safely say that I'm over him. The handling of the quarterback position has been ABYSMAL. It's not enough that they completely botched the McEvoy over Stave to start the season thing, but now they're ramming this 2 quarterback system thing in our faces. I get it. You like McEvoy. But you did not give him a chance to succeed by calling normal drop-back pocket-passing plays for him. And now that Stave's got a little momentum, you wanna keep trying to force the McEvoy square peg into the Wisconsin quarterback round hole? STUPIDI knew we'd miss Paul Chryst, I just didn't think it would be this bad this quickly.

THIS WEEK'S GAME IN HAIKUEvery single dayWe inch closer and closerTo Bo Ryan timeYOUTUBE

In my mind, this had roughly a 0% chance of working out. If the ropes didn't yank out of the ground, then they were gonna bend and just drop the couch. If that didn't happen, the couch was just going to tumble down and crush itself and anyone in the way at the bottom.
But I'll be damned if these rednecks didn't plan the shit out of this. The ropes were staked down real good. They had a third rope tied to the couch to control the speed of the descent. It all went smoothly and according to plan. Brilliant.
PS - After moving a third floor 4 bedroom apartment into a second floor 4 bedroom apartment, I can't even begin to tell you how jealous I was watching these guys. Moving full-sized couches through narrow stairwells is HELL. I'd rather hang shower curtains for 8 hours a day as my job. We had to take the front door of our new building off the damn hinges just to shimmy the couch into the doorway. Never again. #Movers4Life

LOOK AT THIS FUCKING WAVING BULLDOG. Hot damn that's cute as hell. Coolest dog I've seen in a LONG time:

Peak cool. Dog even started waving before the owner did. And he's wearing some doggles. DOGGLES! Never have I wanted to be a girl more than I do right now just so I could drop a HOT I can't even. Because I literally can't even.

I wish I cared more about how cool this lock is. There's passion EMANATING from John Coulter. He keeps talking about how easy it would be to break the thing if you tried to jimmy it and all it does is remind me of this old gem:

The ebaumsworld.com watermark really brings it home. That's old internettin'. The Wild West days of the internet.

Remind me never to complain about how windy it is in Chicago, because apparently it gets so windy in England that waterfalls stop falling.#FOODPORN

That's some THICK CUT bacon from Au Cheval. I went for the first time recently and I was VERY satisfied. Of course, I didn't just get some bacon:

It's the little things they do there that really makes this burger special. The tiny little egg skillets they use are adorable. That pickle is GORGEOUS. Look at all the colors on my plate! Simply delightful. The final product?

EGGASMIC. I'm not even a huge egg guy, but something about yolk running through beef gets me all worked up. That sounds weird. It's just fucking good.IN CONCLUSION, Au Cheval's burger is up there with every other amazing burger in the city.PS - I think I'm ready for burger shops to go back to 'normal' buns. I guess I'm just running my course with the pretzel bun. We all knew it was a fad and not a permanent shift, right? Am I a pretzel bun hating hipster? Hating on pretzel buns before it was cool? That's how I feel.

#SKYPORN

Intense sunrise pic from @ChicagoCabbie. I'll be perfectly honest: I've seen this @ChicagoCabbie Twitter handle pop up in my feed several times. I liked to think it was a normal, dirty cabbie who just liked tweeting a lot. But from reading his bio and some of his tweets, it seems like he' s some kind of private cab for hire. You can DM him and arrange a ride without going through an app. Seems fishy. I'll stick with the Uber game for now.

PREDICTION CITYIf we're just being real, I'm having a hard time generating ANY excitement about this football team. It's a shame. For a team that controls their own destiny heading into November, I feel NOTHING. Does anyone out there think they're going to run the table in the conference? No way. They should get Herring, Trotter, and hopefully Watt back soon. That's nice. But as long as they dick around with McEvoy at QB, they're doing nothing but capping their own ceiling.A team with Melvin Gordon, a monstrous offensive line, and a solid defense should be able to do some work in the B1G this year. Especially with MSU and OSU off the schedule. But I'm in a 'believe it when I see it' kinda position. It IS Homecoming, however. Let's just ride the Badger Spirit for a weekend and forget about everything that's terrible about this team this year.THE PICK:WISCONSIN 31, MARYLAND 27